Friday, December 9, 2011

Excerpt from a poetry book I am writing


(The following is an excerpt of the poetry book I am writing about a Palestinian born on May 15, 1948 under an olive tree as his mother dies. -- It is called "Jathoor is my Name, It means Roots they Claim")  Although the main character of the poetry (Jathoor) is fictional, any Palestinian could be Jathoor.  The following passage is about the massacre of Sabra and Chatilla)


Ariel Sharon was the Defense Minister
His demeanor was way past sinister
It was out in out menacing and combative
And of course he had an ulterior motive

You see his power base was to cater
To the party of the hater
The party that settled our land
And said they transformed our sand

Our land they said was their birthright
How can any land be anyone’s if not by might
Yes Israel won the 1967 Six Day War
But did it buy them peace evermore?

Israel is the only nation on earth
That ever since its birth
Has not had one day of peace
Because on the land it only has a lease

You see the issue of what are Israel’s boundaries
Has yet to be determined in treaties
Are the boundaries--that of 1948, 1967 or the Dead Sea
We do not know the forest for the tree

But wait I am getting ahead of myself
For at this juncture I want to delve
Delve into what Sharon had done
When he allowed the killing in the pre-dawn sun

Sharon had control of Beirut, Paris of the Middle East
As is its nickname that did not last
For Sharon destroyed the city with heavy shelling
Gun shells shattered many a building and dwelling

It was the summer of 1982
Israeli invaded Lebanon in crew
Devastated the city at will
Giving us all the haunting chill

So into the refugee camps he did allow
Allow the Lebanese Christian Phalangs to plow
To plow in murder and mayhem
Killing, slaughtering, dismembering them

Sabra and Shatilla was his blood bath
When we counted the bodies and did the math
Over 3,500 men, women and children were slaughtered
At the hands of Sharon’s allies, Palestinians were butchered

Oh God! The agony of seeing those bodies
Oh God! Look at all the atrocities
The pain and anguish would never
Never leave, for the lamentation goes on forever

To this day, I remember those sights
Seeing innocent children’s bodies in the pre-dawn lights
Bullet holes and exit wounds filled the young carcasses
Blood splattered along walls, doors, floors and on glasses

What brutal sick mind would do this?
Or allow one to commit this remiss?
This careless act so much expected
From an enemy, ruthless and determined

Determined to commit war crimes
Determined to use any arms
Any arms at its disposal or means
Even third party surrogates it seems

Yes the Phalanges in Lebanon did the act
But Sharon was in charge, that is a fact
His own government cited him in a report
But do you think this had any sort

Was there any sort of punishment, reprimand, castigation
Reprimand, penance, chastisement or retribution
No, two decades later Sharon would be rewarded
His people would elect President and honored

What kind of people are the Israelis?
Rewarding the Butcher of Beirut with ease
Making him the Head of State, so powerful
After he committed a crime so heinous, so  dreadful

Really it was a crime so wicked, so heinous, so evil
That it cannot be contemplated to be done by the devil
Much less a people almost annihilated
By a brutal man who did not want them to be assimilated

How could the Israelis live morally after this tragedy?
How can they remind us of their holocaust, their calamity?
When they allow this brutality against humanity
Would Moses do the same in all practicality?

I know, I know what will be said
That the tragedy is the rockets loaded with lead
Hurled against Israeli’s northern border
Coming at their towns like a ton of bolder

And the answer is that the rockets
Are launched at the Israeli residential pockets
The occupiers of the land
The so-called converters of the sand

These “converters” are living in houses with mortar and brick
While the Palestinian refugees are living in tents held up with stick
Palestinian children have the same right
To live in a home, in a secure site


(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

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